Then We Fall
by letsbehappy
Summary: TROYELLA. She would be the basketball coach's assistant for the next month and that was the exact amount of time she had to get Troy Bolton to notice her.
1. Let's start the bidding at 20

* * *

"Next up for auction is Miss Gabriella Montez, an excellent student who will be your personal assistant for the next month. Let's start the bidding at twenty dollars."

She stood straight and unmoving in the middle of the gymnasium as several teachers began to bid.

Struggling to keep a genuine smile, she repeatedly reminded herself that this fund-raising was necessary for the the drama department if they wanted to increase the school's budget for the production.

Her fingers fiddled with the fabric of her floral, knee-length skirt. She inhaled through her mouth because her sinuses were blocked, a result of recovering from a cold that had her stay home the other day.

Thirty-something students stood before her, only watching the auction because they finished their lunch and had nothing better to do.

As the numbers increased, Gabriella pictured herself making photocopies of worksheets and duct taping dilapidated textbooks alone in a room with a rheumy-eyed math teacher tending to his own responsibilities. Or perhaps she'd be scrubbing beakers and flasks with residue of chemicals left from the experiments done by her peers.

She glanced over at Taylor McKessie, who grinned encouragingly.

Of course she could smile, she'd already been assigned to help out only the nicest and youngest teacher at East High who happened to be a freshman girl's Physical Education teacher. The most work she'd end up having to do is setting up volleyball nets.

They had both signed up for the drama club the year in order to appear more well-rounded on resumes and college applications. And it was Taylor who had suggested that volunteering to be apart of the student auction would be the courteous thing to do, not to mention giving a good impression on their fellow club members.

Gabriella had huffed and responded with a recluctant, Fine, I'm in too.

After a while, it seemed that interest in her was slowing down, and it looked like she may be cleaning and disinfecting band instruments with the school's music teacher. Oh, how nice.

Then she noticed a man wandering into the gym, expressing attentiveness in his surroundings.

From what Gabriella could see, he was tall, dark-haired and broad-shouldered. He looked like the stern, dedicated type that showed no mercy for accept half-assed work or slacking off. One of those 'do it right or don't bother trying people.'

He placed a bid on her at the last minute. Even from behind all those chattering teenagers, his voice was booming and strong.

Gabriella hoped he wouldn't demand too much from her; she was a student volunteer, not a paid janitor after all.

She squinted slightly and saw a white whistle on a string tied around his neck. Unless he was a teacher with an exceptionally rowdy class, she assumed she'd be spending most of her time in this gym. Not her most favorite place to be, but at least she wouldn't be embarrasing herself in front of her classmates in the P.E. class she was failing. At least there would be no one screaming, 'Only pass the ball to _your_ team, Gabriella!' in her ear.

It wasn't her fault that she was stronger in academics. Not everyone has the skill to dribble the ball _and_ look up at the same time.

"Sold!" A gravel banged against a desk.

Gabriella moved off to the side to join Taylor while a girl named Martha Cox stepped into the center to take her place.

"Do you know who that man is?" she asked her friend, lowering her voice.

Taylor whispered, "No, but he looks familiar. I think I've seen him around the school before, never paid much attention to him though."

Gabriella gulped. "I hope he's not mean. I know I signed up for this, but I'd rather not be yelled at."

Martha's turn was quickly over and she scurried to stand beside Gabriella. "You are so lucky!" she said.

"Am I?" Gabriella questioned timidly, afraid she had missed any sarcasm.

"That's Coach Bolton. Coach of the varsity basketball team. Father of Troy Bolton." Martha sighed dreamily. "If you get to wipe the sweat off of the basketball players and watch all of their practices for a month, I'm going to kill you, Gabriella Montez."

Taylor intervened, "Psh, if I know Gabi, she'd use a mop and stand no closer than a couple feet from them. She'd be totally unappreciative of this opportunity, taking it for granted."

"It's okay, Gabriella, boys don't have cooties, you know," teased Martha.

"Hey! I like guys ... I just haven't found any suitable ones at this school yet," Gabriella defended herself.

Martha grinned. "Just wait until you get up close to the basketball team, you'll be drooling all over the court."

When the entire auction had ended, each student volunteer met up with their respective teacher who they'd be assisting.

"It's Gabriella Montez, right?"

"Yes, it is, Mr. Bolton," she responded.

"You probably know that I coach the basketball team, but I'm also teaching History this year, so I definitely need your help at the practices. You'll probably be reinflating balls, keeping track of the equipment, handing out water, and doing stuff like that, okay?" he informed her.

She found it inexpicably difficult to maintain eye contact with him as he gazed at her steadily with intimidating cobalt eyes, but she nodded and breathed a sigh of relief. So far, he was friendly and understanding. She'd try to enjoy this experience.

Mr. Bolton checked his watch hurriedly and told her, "I have to leave, but can you be here at three thirty today for the practice? I'll explain everything to you once you get there."

"Is it okay if I'm a little late because I have this class I need to catch up on, and I'm meeting the teacher after school? I won't take long, and it's just for today."

"Oh, it's no problem. See you there, Miss Montez."

* * *

Gabriella jogged the whole way to the gym after she had recieved everything she needed to make up the work she had missed yesterday. Upon hearing the squeak of running shoes and the thumping of basketballs, she increased her speed.

The moment she burst through the doors, something hard hit her with extreme force, and all of a sudden, she found herself on the ground.

Above the ringing in her ears, she heard a distant, "Sorry!"

Then she was met with a pair of vaguely familiar piercing blue eyes and her breathing hitched.

This time she could not look away.

* * *

**AN: It'd seriously make my day if you left a review, I'd love opinions!**


	2. You guys would be so cute together!

"Why have I never noticed Troy Bolton before?

"I mean, I know I'm in his math class and I know he's East High's Golden Boy, worshipped by all nail-bed obsessed cheerleaders, but I've never _really_ noticed him, you know?"

Taylor hauled a textbook from the top shelf of her locker into her arms for her first period class that day and then turned to her friend, shrugging. "I don't know. Maybe it's because you are always so quick to dismiss jocks as arrogant idiots who don't deserve everyone's attention." She paused. "And what do you mean by 'notice him'? He's definitely not invisible or some made-up being."

Gabriella leaned against the locker adjacent to Taylor's and folded her arms. "Hey, you're the one who told me, on my first day of school, that they were nothing more than neanderthals," she said. "And by notice, I mean ... acknowledge how ... nice he is. Yesterday at practise he apologized when he accidentally hit me with a ball. He also saw one of the new team members struggling with his free throws and even stayed behind late to help him with them. That's not typical arrogant idiot behaviour."

Taylor nodded slowly."Okay, so he's a little more compassionate then we may have realized. Kudos to him."

Realizing Taylor wanted to change topics, Gabriella blurted out, "He's not too bad at basketball either. I-I don't know the sport, but I still think he was good."

She still needed to do a little more research on the blue-eyed boy who caused her to blush and made her heart accelerate.

"Of course one would assume that since he _is_ captain. He wasn't elected simply for of his looks."

"Yeah, he does look nice, doesn't he?" Gabriella sighed in the smallest of voices.

Taylor narrowed her eyes at the slight hint of wistfulness in her friend's tone.

Suspiciously, Taylor continued, "He does work out as much as he can, I've heard. But he's a little too ... pretty-boy for my tastes." She had purposely lied to see how Gabriella would react to it.

"Really?"

"You don't think so? Well, to each their own, I guess. I'd prefer someone like Chad or Jason or Zeke." Noticing Gabriella wasn't completely there and was probably in mid daydream, Taylor listed the only players she knew the names of.

"But haven't you ever looked into those cobalt eyes?"

Taylor slammed her locker door shut. "Gabriella, are we really discussing guys? What happened to you overnight?"

Then she watched as her friend stammered incoherently. "Aw, it's your first crush," Taylor giggled.

Gabriella lowered her voice. "Taylor, I've had crushes before, but I've just never liked telling people because at my old school, one boy found out once, took one look at me and said, 'Ew, she's a freaky nerd.' I was mortified."

"Oh, hun," Taylor said comfortingly, "that boy was a jerk, you do know that, right?"

"Yes, but my feelings were hurt nonetheless. I can just imagine being humiliated like that again."

"I can promise you I won't tell a soul. We could even have a code name for him! Oh my gosh, that used to be so fun in middle school. I used to like this foreign exchange student from Germany. Martha and I called him - "

"Taylor!" Gabriella hissed. "No way, you have to try and help me get over this crush!"

"But I just thought about it and you guys would be so cute together! I can hear the bells."

"I can not like him. I haven't spoken one word to the guy and already I can't get him out of my head. This isn't normal!"

"You're adorable, Gabriella. I could list ten girls off the top of my head who obsess over him 24/7." Taylor thought for a moment. "Why don't you try talking to him to get over your crush? It's not a bad idea, his conversational skills could totally be revolting."

Gabriella laughed.

"But why don't you have a little faith in yourself? If he's as nice as you've observed, you two could actually work out. When's the next practice? Tomorrow during free period?"

"Whatever, I just feel silly thinking about this stuff. Forget this conversation ever happened." She linked an arm with Taylor's. Come on, let's get to home room before we're late."

* * *

Entering her math class, Gabriella methodically sat down in her seat at the front, the one she had chosen at the beginning of the year.

There were only seconds left before the bell when Troy strolled in accompanied by Chad, Zeke and Jason, who she recognized from yesterday. They noisily made their way to the very back of the room, Jason muttering something like, "Shit, I think I forgot to do my homework," under his breath.

God, why could she not stop staring at Troy? It was the hair, the smile, the cheekbones and he had pretty good skin for a guy. She was infatuated.

Gabriella forced herself to turn around and propped her elbows on the desk. The commotion that she could still hear suddenly made her very lonely because she hadn't befriended anyone in this class yet.

The teacher, Mrs. Brooks, wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt and purple scarf, waddled into the class pregnant belly first. She greeted the class, and began explaining a small and simple assignment that would be completed within the period.

She thought it would be an easy way for students to raise their marks since most of them were doing poorly. Gabriella, who was already doing very well, thought her mark would plummet if she messed up for whatever reason.

Amidst her worrying, Gabriella had been attentive enough to catch one more thing: it would be in partners.

Immediately, she thought of Troy. How perfect things worked out sometimes. But then she remembered that he had walked in with a whole posse and they could all easily pair up.

As Mrs. Brooks continued speaking, the whole class was now pairing up through eye contact, nods, waves and in Chad's case, a less than discrete "Yo, Zeke, you're working with me."

Gabriella sat motionless. She hung her head and knew she'd be with someone else the class had left behind.

"All right, class," the teacher instructed, "since you're all paired up, go sit with your partners and I'll hand out the assignments sheets. Now you are working in pairs, but each of you has to hand in your own individual sheet for marking."

The brunette turned around and to her surprise, she found that she was the only person alone. The class must have had an odd number of students.

She soon caught sight of a minor argument situated at the back of the classroom. Chad and Jason were fighting over Zeke, who currently had the highest math grade out of all four of them, while Troy was watching to see who he would end up with.

"I'm the one who needs all the help I can get here," Jason exclaimed.

"You were his partner last time and he did all the work for you," Chad shot back.

Troy merely rolled his eyes and said, "Guys, we have a limited amount of time so just settle this so we can start." He was very calm collected even though Gabriella knew he wasn't fairing too well in the course either, and she admired how cool he was. His teammates' marks must have been pretty low for him to understand how much they need Zeke.

Their immature squabbling was interrupted by the teacher calling Jason over to her desk. Apparently, he was exempt from this assignment because he needed to go take his retest today.

Chad snatched Zeke up in a heartbeat.

Troy politely asked the teacher is he could be in a group of three with them, but she refused because, "Why look over there, Gabriella doesn't have a partner. Go work with her, Troy."

She watched as he trotted over to take a seat beside her, disgruntled. He slapped his paper down and sighed before scribbling his name down.

Didn't he realize what a gorgeous name he had?

And he smelled so much better outside the gym walls.

Yet Troy wasn't even looking at her, he was staring blankly at the clock hanging on the wall above the door, his pencil unmoving.

So Gabriella commenced her work, filling in empty spaces with numbers effortlessly.

She sensed movement out of the corner of her eye and twisted her neck to see Troy trying to copy her answers unsuccessfully. Where she had penciled in a 2, he had wrote 7.

He caught her staring and asked, "This is a group project, isn't it?"

After she rotated her paper in his direction, he furiously copied down everything she had written as they both remained silent.

"Troy?" she said, feeling timid.

"Uh, yeah?" he replied monotonously, his voice not nearly as animated as she'd always heard it.

"D-Do you have any ideas or ... "

He scoffed. "I have no clue what this is even about."

Frowning, Gabriella explained, "Well, you have these four numbers here, and all of them have to be used in your equations. We're trying to get each equation to equal all the numbers from 1 to 100. It's pretty basic. We did this for fun in middle school."

He seemed perturbed. "Do we really have to do this?"

"It counts toward our grade."

"Okay, so, like, the sum of all these numbers is 21."

"Yeah, I, uh, got that already."

"How are we supposed to get the other ones?"

"You can use any operating symbols, like multiplication or absolute value, or you can make any number an exponent."

Troy attempted to figure out the number 14. "Does that work then?"

Gabriella scanned it and grimaced when she told him he was wrong. "You should always keep the order of operations in mind, remember?"

"Right," he said, gritting his teeth.

She immediately felt bad and handed him her eraser when she noted he was working with a broken pencil without one. She knew exactly how frustrating it could be to be out of your comfort zone.

He spoke up again. "Are you new or something?"

"I've been at this school for a month already," Gabriella informed him hesitantly. "But I was helping out at your practice the other day."

"Oh, you were?"

"Yes, I help your coach with the equipment and some other things."

"And you're always going to be there?"

"Only for a month."

He was content to end the conversation there and sank lower in his seat to take his cell phone out of his pocket and text someone, completely ignoring her.

Gabriella let out a disappointed sigh and went back to her work.

* * *

**AN: Thanks for all those kind reviews! They inspired me so much that I wanted to update as soon as I could. I know this is going pretty slow, but just bare with me for now.**


	3. Partners?

**Sorry I'm so late with this update! I'll try to get a preview of an upcoming chapter on my profile soon.**

* * *

"How's the Troy Bolton situation going?"

"Backwards," sighed Gabriella, flipping through the pages of her textbook. "If he didn't already know I was a nerd--and he probably didn't because he just found out about my existence earlier today--he does now. I flaunted my dumb intelligence in his face."

Taylor chuckled. "Well, you're Gabriella. You can't help it if you're a genius."

A soft knock on Gabriella's bedroom door made their heads swivel towards the sound. Mrs. Montez entered, holding a plate of vegetables and dip, and smiled at the two studious girls. "How's the studying coming along?"

"Great, mom." Gabriella got out of her chair to take the snacks from her mother and placed them on her desk. "Thanks."

As her mom left the room, Gabriella turned to her friend. "Sorry for the rabbit food."

Taylor plucked a carrot stick off the plate and swirled it in the garlic dressing. "What are you talking about? Any food is good food."

"Do you think Troy doesn't pay attention to me because I'm too geeky?"

"Gabriella, seriously, what's with this nonsense?"

"Well, look at me. I enjoy math, I eat healthy food, and I'm _volunteering_ to help other people out."

Taylor frowned. "Aren't those good things?"

"Yes, but it's lame in Troy's books."

"Oh, Gabi, you aren't considering trying to fit in with the popular crowd are you? If you're going to become a poor excuse for a human being, I don't think it's worth getting Troy to look your way. What do you even see in him if he's causing all this unnecessary self-consciousness?"

Gabriella didn't respond right away but swapped her chemistry textbook for her French binder. "I don't know. I've never really felt this way about a guy before. You should see him during basketball practices, Tay. He's, like, a different person on the court."

"Have I mentioned how lucky you are to have this opportunity of being Coach Bolton's assistant?"

She laughed and said, "Enough of the boy talk. My mom might overhear and get curious. Here, I'll quiz you on World War II if you quiz me on French verbs."

* * *

If she could, Gabriella would construct a house for herself inside her math classroom. That way, she'd rarely have to leave the safe confinements of the four walls covered in posters with different equations and sayings like, 'Math is radical!'

She felt untouchable when she understood everything. Math was logic. She knew the formulas and the rules. One plus one gave you two, and there were simply no other outcomes. Her heart would never have to be put on the line in a predictable world.

Mrs. Brooks handed out the assignment that she'd worked on with Troy. Well, by herself while Troy copied off of her paper. To her relief, she'd managed to get a perfect score, which meant--

"Dude! How'd you get everything right?" exclaimed Chad, looking over his teammate's shoulder to see his mark.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Troy glance in her direction. That meant maybe he recalled yesterday's class and acknowledged that she'd helped him. Maybe she'd get a thank-you.

At the back of the class, Jason sighed. "I better have done well on the retest. Coach says I'm close to being kicked off the team if my marks don't improve."

Zeke clapped him on the back. "Don't worry, man, we'll do everything it takes to keep you with us."

"Maybe if we're all struggling, we shouldn't keep choosing the same partners," Chad mused.

"Yeah," Jason agreed, "let's all pair up with a nerd like Bolton did." He did a double take at Troy's assignment sheet. "I call her next time."

"Fine your own, buddy." Troy smirked and slipped the paper in between the pages of his messy notebook. "This one's mine."

Okay, so they were all being completely disrespectful, but Gabriella's heart couldn't help but flutter. He wanted to work with her again, and hopefully, he might even work next time. She'd raise his grade, keep him on the team and he'd be forever grateful.

Oh, her fairytale was about to start being written.

* * *

Gabriella arrived early to practice, wanting to make sure all the basketballs were inflated and the dry towels and water bottles were ready. She liked to be prepared, and would rather Mr. Bolton think nicely of her than to regret ever coming to the ever so fateful student auction.

She wasn't surprised to see Troy emerging from the boys' locker room with the same look of determination that he always had after the first step on the court. His bright red jersey was shining underneath the bright lights and had his name and the number 14 on the back. She watched his eyes scan the gymnasium from one net to the other, skipping over her.

Startled, he looked up when she called out to him. "I'll just get the basketballs for you in the storage room."

Mr. Bolton had supplied her with a key and told her to use it appropriately at the beginning of her job as his assistant.

Knowing he was waiting for her, she hastily pulled out the basketball rack out of the small room and into the gym. Her hand felt each of the orange spheres until she found a good one to pass to him, which he caught with lightning reflexes. Good thing he wasn't very far away, the ball would have never made it into his grasp and she would have flushed bright red as he went to go get it.

"Thanks," Troy said, genuinely smiling and dribbling the ball several times to test it out. He seemed to approve of her selection and spun the sphere on his finger, watching it go around and around, never stopping.

Wanting to hear his voice more, she asked, "So, um, we did pretty well on the math assignment, hey?"

He stopped spinning the ball, held it with both his hands and paused before replying, "Yeah, yeah we did. Thanks for that, too, by the way. I never knew you were that good at math. I mean, you seemed to know what to do but I never expected us to get an A+. Sorry I wasn't much help."

She didn't know if he was actually apologetic. Yesterday, it didn't appear as though he was trying at all. But Gabriella was a girl who was brought up to believe in second chances and understood bad first impressions. "No problem. If-if you want, I could work on the next assignment or project with you, too. Partners?" She held her breath, but she was pretty sure she knew the answer or else she never would have had the courage to ask.

"Awesome, that'd be great." He smiled again and she felt as if she was being plunged underwater except, strangely, she could breathe.


End file.
